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March 03, 2012

Just A Coincidence?

Rush Limbaugh has attracted attention before and no doubt will do so again, but I question the timing - Andrew Breitbart dies, lots of people wonder who the new voices of the Right will be, and Rush manages to get himself all over the news.

But the language is over the top and not helpful to his larger point, however helpful it may be to Rush's personal goals. He's putting himself ahead of the team here. Of course, I will pivot 180 degrees quicker than Derick Rose or Jeremy Lin and be a fanboy for life if Rush picks up on the "Wake Up And Smell The (Free!) Coffee Act of 2012". Which I humbly think makes a similar point in a less incendiary fashion. I'm not tossing around words like "brilliant" or "Swiftian" myself, but really - feel free.

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Well that gets in the way of the 'narrative'
Alice, and we can't have that. About dear Olympia she voted for the stimulus, Obamacare
and Dodd/Frank, one would think 'Mission Accomplished' would be her watchword.

I'm having a hard time believing that pushing the issue of sexual license is a winner for the Donks. I know that's not what they think they are doing but with this little stunt they have moved the discussion, with help from Rush, from "healthcare" access to a discussion about subsidizing sexual license.

"Sandra Fluke’s Appearance Is No Fluke
Posted by Just a Grunt on Mar 02, 2012 at 10:49 am

For me the interesting part of the story is the ever-evolving “coed”. I put that in quotes because in the beginning she was described as a Georgetown law student. It was then revealed that prior to attending Georgetown she was an active women’s right advocate. In one of her first interviews she is quoted as talking about how she reviewed Georgetown’s insurance policy prior to committing to attend, and seeing that it didn’t cover contraceptive services, she decided to attend with the express purpose of battling this policy. During this time, she was described as a 23-year-old coed. Magically, at the same time Congress is debating the forced coverage of contraception, she appears and is even brought to Capitol Hill to testify. This morning, in an interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show, it was revealed that she is 30 years old, NOT the 23 that had been reported all along.

In other words, folks, you are being played. She has been an activist all along and the Dems were just waiting for the appropriate time to play her.

While she is described as a “third year law student” they always fail to mention that she is also the past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice."

I agree with DoT that Rush missed the target, but I don't think he or we need to fall all over ourselves apologizing. A bomb thrower is going to miss the target now and then, but he hits more than he misses. Republicans should just be doubling down on how preposterous Fluke's testimony was. She clearly lied, in addition to her brazenness in asking for Federal intervention to benefit herself at others' expense.

The language is worse than "over the top." Calling a woman a slut because she's not monogamous is not socially acceptable language. The PC police have decided that conservative society is not going to enforce its norms about monogamy by shaming women. This is an area where conservatives should accept that society has changed, and not fight to keep the old status quo. It was never a particularly good or attractive part of our culture and losing it is not a bad thing.

This is not the hill I want the Republican Party to die on (it's so important that we be able to publicly call this particular woman a slutty dickbag cum-dumpster or else other women across America will become more promiscuous). That's a great way to lose this election.

A lot of people are getting hung up on the math associated with spending $1,000 per year on contraception. The simple fact is, the bitch lied about how much it costs.

It makes for a funny private joke to calculate how much sex a person would actually have to have to incur $1,000 in contraception costs over a year (especially given that she has insurance from Georgetown that would pay for doctor visits but not pills or jimhats). But public shaming is different from private joking. And the point of this joke has to be that the $1,000 figure is false--but for too many, the end point of the joke is to call this lying leftist activist a slut, whore, etc. which distracts from the fact that she's a lying activist manufacturing a phony controversy.

There is also something being lost in this debate, which is the difference between contraception and protection from STDs. If a bitch is jumping on 10 different dicks a week, contraception is still only going to cost $150/year (a few bucks for a co-pay for a yearly doctor visit, which is mostly covered by Georgetown's insurance, and $108 from a chain store for generic birth control pills). The liberals have framed this debate as "contraception" rather than "protection from STDs" because they're not ready to "go there" yet.

The great thing about Breitbart was that while he detested leftism, he was virtuous enough to recognize that most of the people he disagreed so vehemently with were just ordinary people with wrongheaded ideas about fixing things, not inherently evil.
Too bad that sentiment isn't more widespread from both sides of the divide.
Back to usefulness.

Jimmy from George Snuffaluffagus asking Romney about contraception to Fluke.

This has all been a thought out ,planned operation by the Marxists. Nothing they do is by accident.
I'm laughing my ass off over all the hand wringing vis a vis Rush Limbaugh. Obama needs to be handcuffed and put in prison.
He does not have the authority to do have the things he does.
And, did I mention, Fluke is a whore.

Even if it had been conducted after Rush's remarks, which it wasn't, it still can't answer my question.

All it measured was the support for Obama's birth control mandate. The results can't tell us how many people are going to change their vote from R to D - or even from leaning R to leaning D - because of Rush's remarks.

That was my original question for which I'm still waiting to hear an answer.

Too bad that sentiment isn't more widespread from both sides of the divide.

Yeah, someone in my lefty family just e-mailed a link to Taibbi's column in Rolling Stone, noting how "hilarious" the comments are. I couldn't stomach reading all of them, but I must say, they weren't the least bit clever or funny, quite apart from the disgusting sentiments displayed.

Exactly Gus & narciso. Like the March 20th Tea Party slander too. The story & the press were ready to go with the racist, evil Tea Party story. Nothing happened, so they had to make it up.
The real story should have been how the Congressmen lied about American citizens & how the MFM spread their lies & propaganda.
Reps. Andre Carson, John Lewis, Emanuel Cleaver, & James Clyburn...liars.

Somewhat in that vein, I really liked this remembrance from Gavin McInnes (whom I previously hadn't heard of):

Another evening we were both arguing with someone who still believed government can create jobs. She was from Madison and like all liberals there, she saw Governor Scott Walker as a union-busting thug who hated the working man. I explained that Walker’s privatization created way more jobs than the government did and she said, “Yeah, but they were all just tourism jobs.” Breitbart ended the whole argument with, “So?”

What a word. It’s only two letters but it shows the PC left they’ve never thought past the silly hysteria that surrounds their accusations. Oil companies have had record profits this year. So? That’s what they’re supposed to do.

***

I once asked Andrew where it all came from. Where did he get the hubris to take on the whole world? “I woke up one day,” he told me, smiling with a drink in his hand (despite accusations, he didn’t do drugs), “and I said, ‘What Would Andrew Do?’ From that day forward I did whatever I wanted and said exactly what was on my mind.” His boldness was contagious. Days after meeting him you catch yourself strutting down the street with your chest puffed-out yelling, “So?” at everyone who has a problem.

This is precisely why he was so popular. He made us all feel fearless.

Short version, Noonan was complaining that Breitbart was too focused on the political
brawl, of course, she is all too living attention of someone who turns at 'look squirrel' and fails to examine the facts behind the memes. Her griping about the candidates, was punctuated by two digs at Obama, which hadn't passed her lips in 4 years.

This young woman's testimony emphasizes a growing problem on America's campuses: students are spending so much money on tuition they feel they cannot purchase other goods and services that are important to them. As Speaker of the House, I recognize the need for bold, decisive action in this situation.

We have therefore passed a bill in the House to eliminate all federal funding for any tuition-charging institution if any student at that institution says that tuition or other school fees are too high for the student to be able to afford birth control and/or prophylactics of a quantity and quality which that student deems appropriate for his or her lifestyle.

Barnard College and President Obama: rude (and yes, lame.) And ready for the irony? President Obama is said to want to discuss women’s issues and the women’s agenda…and yet “big foots” an accomplished woman!

Read below and tell me what you think.

Here are the facts: Barnard College asks NY Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson to be its commencement speaker. Giving a commencement speech is lots of work and means giving up a weekend – but Abramson graciously accepted. Abramson is a big deal – she is the first woman Executive Editor of the New York Times – so this is a big deal for Barnard. And yes, having a woman Executive Editor of the New York Times is a big deal for women of all ages. She is blazing the trail. Barnard was very lucky to get her as the speaker and my guess is that others wanted her but she turned them down to speak at Barnard’s commencement.

Then some time later the White House calls Barnard College and says President Obama wants to give the Barnard College commencement speech. Barnard jumps at the chance to have the President of the United States, “trades up” and Abramson gets “big footed” by the President.

Of course Abramson can’t criticize this - so I will for her and for other women.

This is positively rude. I think less of Barnard for “trading up” and of the President for “big footing.” He could easily find another college to speak at (I bet he has dozens of open invitations) and Barnard ? Well…I would be embarrassed to be part of Barnard.
___

It would be wrong, but couldn't we get folks to float inflated condoms over the ceremonywhen he speaks ?

Any poll that does not show its work and provide crosstabs, should be rightly considered at best junk and more likely leftist propaganda. Same reason that Hansen and Mann et al dont want to provide the underlying data.

Once you figure out that they sampled Adults not likely voters, and managed to find +12 more Democrats than Republicans and frame the question in the most favorable light possible, well you might just discount the whole nonsense. So save yourself the hassle and ignor any poll that hides their work.

OK, this isn't useful at all but it is good stuff for a Saturday, especially one in which rather romantically minded young ladies are in the news;
The voluptuous April Stevens:sings the justly infamous Teach Me Tiger (you tube link to the song).
Couldn't believe this song the first time we heard it years ago. Always good for a laugh and a pick me up.
Now I'm really going to go get to doing useful stuff, I promise.

Yeah, someone in my lefty family just e-mailed a link to Taibbi's column in Rolling Stone, noting how "hilarious" the comments are. I couldn't stomach reading all of them, but I must say, they weren't the least bit clever or funny, quite apart from the disgusting sentiments displayed.

Out of curiosity (and most of that curiosity is based on having met you in person) do you ever fire back at this type of stuff?

In this particular case you could reply that Breitbart hugely enjoyed retweeting anything negative that people said about him, so by spreading the Taibbi link around they're doing exactly what Breitbart would have wanted them to do.

“I hope he gets carpet bombed. The more Republicans spend in Nebraska, the less they’ll have to go after Democratic Senate candidates who actually act like Democrats,” said Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the influential blog Daily Kos. “And if it turns out he needs the help, then too bad. F—- him.”

The political world Kerrey is returning to after a decade out of politics looks nothing like the one he left in 2001, when he declined to run for a third term.

Kerrey the President of New University is not prog enough for the progs! He is going to get beat like a snare drum in Nebraska, a place he left and never returned to long ago.

This is positively rude. I think less of Barnard for “trading up” and of the President for “big footing.” He could easily find another college to speak at (I bet he has dozens of open invitations) and Barnard ? Well…I would be embarrassed to be part of Barnard.

What a screw job for a wimmenz college to bump a female speaker for somebody who regularly snubs them in a classless manner because of his insecurity. I hope there are more than a few grads who recognize this snub for what it is and make their feelings known financially.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t respect Rick or like Rick, but I didn’t think he had any chance at all,” DeWine said.

“He was at 2 percent in the polls, had no money. I bought into the conventional wisdom that Governor Romney, you know, was the best candidate in the fall,” DeWine said. “But I changed my mind as this campaign has played out. It’s clear to me that Romney is not the best candidate.”

Funny how Dewine's imbecile Ohio GOP brother torpedoed Willard in November by inviting him to Ohio without giving him background info on Issue 2 so he could answer the inevitable questions (Romney's people could have prepped him also although I've already questioned their collective intelligence) which was ultimately aimed at damaging Kasich. Yes it's a *fine* party we have here in Ohio.

Gmax: I don't mind if ignore my comments about polls, but I'm not going to ignore them and I don't consider it a hassle to do 10" of googling to discover and report exactly what statistical contortions they used whether it's poor sampling or loaded language or irrelevant dates or any other trick that hides actual meaning (which can be none).

I dont know what prompted that, but I was agreeing with about 98%. I did not address it to you, in fact much of my comments are meant for the not insignificant number of posters here who dont seem to understand that all polls are most definitely not created equal, and the two biggest sponsor groups of polls, i.e. Universities and News organizations, have a natural bias to twist the polling to support their world view.

I wish more folks understood the games played, it would remove one of the last arrows from an emptying quiver of the left.

IMO, Fluke's not just a slut. She's a Leftist partisan hack slut trying to use publicly funded contraception as wedge issue.

I'm flabbergasted that people aren't more offended by THAT than they are at Rush's calling her what she is.

It's Bizarro World, unfortunately. I'm losing whatever hope I had that the Republic can be saved if we're just gonna all stand here wringing our frigging hands and flogging ourselves like this over something like this.

"In other words, folks, you are being played."
I think the Dems are trying to *fluke* us with this contrived flap. The label will stick if Republicans cannot start finding labels for the progressives. Remember "culture of corruption"? Where do we see "crony capitalism" or "soft despotism" being established? Time is running out and November will soon be here with Pres.Kool sitting up on Mt. Olympus ready for his close-ups.

Happy Birthday Jane! A quick Maine update,independent candidates in Maine have until June 1st to collect 4,000 signatures.Former independent Gov.Angus King and former gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler will decide this week about the Senate race.

Perhaps Congress will take time out from the people's business to condemn Rush ... again. Even our president singles out public and private citizens for criticism. It's becoming a seasonal distraction from the not-so subtle dismantling of our country.

"accusing a woman of being a slut and a prostitute is actionable libel"

Calling it an accusation is a false exaggeration.

"What does that make her?"

The proper reading is "that" would make anybody a slut or prostitute metaphorically speaking. So her actions are what is being characterized. Just like the outfit in my example.

Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Nazi, Fascist, are frequently used "metaphorically". So are slut and prostitute. We can debate whether they should only ever be used in clinically precise fashion and I can ridicule anyone who demands only Rush do so.

It's slander if it's purely oral, but I think if it goes out over the airwaves and the speaker knows that it will be picked up and re-published, it may become libel. It doesn't matter; they're just two species of defamation, and the defenses and damages are the same.

CS Monitor:

"Will Sandra Fluke sue Rush Limbaugh for calling her 'a slut?'

"When Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke "a slut" and a 'prostitute,' he set off a firestorm of criticism. Some advertisers are leaving Limbaugh's show."

But the language is over the top and not helpful to his larger point, however helpful it may be to Rush's personal goals. He's putting himself ahead of the team...

I agree.

It's not the first time, nor will it be the last, that Rush has made a thoughtless, incendiary comment. One example was his criticism of the Michael J. Fox add for Claire McKaskill during the 2006 election. Rush stated that Fox exaggerated the effects of his Parkinson's disease for that add saying, "Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting." I remember cringing and thinking that his off the cuff comment was callous and offensive. I should note that he did apologize ("If I was wrong...") later on, but the media and the Democrats had their issue, and it really didn't mater at that point.

Yes, Rush likes to be in the spotlight. I suppose he laughs all the way to the bank, as they say, whenever the MSM gets all flustered by what he says. He certainly relishes it every time that his name is mentioned on the nightly news. My concern is that some things are more important than Rush's ratings or his ginormous bank account. This election certainly is.

Dayum, Rush Limbaugh was an articulate and extremely effective advocate on Conservate issues [long] before anyone had ever heard of Andrew Breitbart (God rest his soul), and Rush [continues to be] thee most most savvy and thee most effective spokesman for the right, also.

He sure as hell wasn't out of line. If you think that he was, you are entitled to your opinion, but you have your head so far up your ass that you don't have a freaking clue what is going on out here in the real world. So stop bitching, and pay attention to what is going on. You look like a fool.

After she deliberatly kills someone. Before ... not so much. You analogy is FUBAR.

On the radio it was an obvious metaphor, not an accusation. Asking the government to make other people pay so she can afford to have sex is "acting like a prostitute" ... bit is not accusing her of breaking the laws against prostitution.

"Slut or slattern is a term applied to an individual who is considered to have loose sexual morals or who is sexually promiscuous. The term is generally pejorative and often applied to women as an insult or offensive term of disparagement, meaning "dirty or slovenly." [1] However some women have demonstrated saying they're proud of being "sluts", and have given it a positive connotation. [2][3]"

As TPaw says, and Mittens echoes 'I wouldn;t have used those words' but then again it's all splunge after that, but what pray tell the appropriate metaphor for what Obama is doing to everyone of our institutions,

Yes, and we lost millions of tax payer dollars on the yet unproven embryonic stem
cell scam,

Yeah narciso & boris. Rush was right about MJ Fox.

Rush keeps opening the curtain on liberal lies & propaganda. He takes the heat while the Republicans step forward &.... DO NOTHING! In these moments the Republicans could shout out the truth. The MFM spotlight is on them & they could shout out the truth....but they don't. :(

"Millions of American women have their contraception measures covered by insurance. Does that mean they are asking to be paid to have sex?"

There are alternate health care solutions available to Fluke also. She is asking the government to make a particular supplier provide the service ... apparently at no additional cost to her. That is rather different.

Your millions (or their employers) are paying for that benefit and for them there may be some tax benefit to have it covered that way. Doubtful that applies here.

Dead flat wrong. If she had actually killed someone, it wouldn't be slanderous to say so, and to call her a murderer. And it wouldn't be slanderous to say that Fluke is asking to be paid to have sex, which makes her a prostitute, if it were true. It isn't true. It's false. That's what makes it actionable.

Jay Cost in an October 2011 article in the Weekly Standard had this to say. Now think about what happens if the partison spread is not equal but +4 Republicans! Lions and tigers and bears oh my:

If 2012 turns out to be a good Republican year, then we might see a partisan spread similar to 2004, when the two parties were evenly matched among the electorate. If we do indeed find that kind of result, and the president wins just 35 percent of the independent vote, next year will be a blowout, the likes of which we have not seen in nearly a quarter century. The Republican candidate would win a 10-point nationwide victory, and pull in close to 400 electoral votes.

Would be interested to know if you've come across Great Grandma's account of it in her diaries if she was up here then. Apparently the ash cloud hit Seattle within 3 days, and eventually made it to Africa.

Having sued a person or two for defamation I'm not sure the way Rush stated makes it actionable.
A mere opinion cannot be defamatory and when Rush said that "essentially" her actions make her a slut or a prostitute that seems nebulous enough terminology to make it tough to sustain it as other than an opinion.

Rush was right. If the so-called "Catholic Law school" had any stones they would dismiss her at once. Once upon a time when they were actually a Catholic institution with a Catholic mission they would have done so. - Squaredance

Of course, you're right, Squaredance. But when was that time of which you speak? During the Spanish Inquisition?

Local story up about a bad cop reveals that a guy I despise, former Anchorage Police Chief, Paul Honeman, was aware of and assisted somewhat in a coverup of one of his officers who was forcing sex upon arrestee's, and is now convicted of rape.

Honeman is a bullying lefty, and I vaguely seem to recall him trashing Sarah Palin when the Media assault was full out upon her, but googling I can't seem to find anything about it.

Have I got my reprehensible Police cops confused, or do you remember any of the specifics?

I don't think the way he actually said it was defamatory. If it were, I doubt she'd sue because the discovery process would be awful.

In fact, one might say by testifying as she did--and holding herself out as a leader on this issue beforehand--she became a public figure and therefore almost impossible to succeed in a defamation suit.

As for those who think the remark was intemperate--maybe--but no worse than Maher, Sullivan and Ltterman, for example, and far less that Kos and the disgusting commenters on AB's untimely death.

You can wear a spotless white toga or you can win and we have to win now.

If we are getting this story in Alaska (via McClatchy) then it appears to me that the Left wing/media effort to resuscitate Anthony Weiner's career is in full swing. First the CNN hosting duty feeler with Breitbart, now this.

Please go on attack mode when possible against letting this dangerous sunuvabitch ever get near to being taken seriously again.

One of the things the Left has done very successfully has been to define the rules of the game. The slut "wins" in their game every time because they have consistently constructed false narratives and back stories.

This was one reason I so admired Andrew Breitbart. He was willing to deconstruct their edifices brick by brick and did it with a smirk.

The Left wants to distract the masses from the failures of the administration daily. Thus putting Limbaugh on the front page suits their needs beautifully.

We can expect this to happen time and again up to and through the election. There will be a steady stream of faux scandals and righteous indignation against any such as the Catholic Church who opposes them.

Freedom equals licentiousness. Wants become needs.

We need to set them on their ears and fight back. Redefining the playing field is an old marketing trick that works very well. In re-imagining the Red - Blue definitions maybe we can start rattling them. LUN